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Auteur: meneervanboxem

After an amazing time in Singapore it was time to get to my favourite city in the world: New York. Getting there was quite a pain in the ass. First I needed to catch a flight a 6am from Singapore to Tokyo, an 8 hour flight. Then I had a 2 hour layover, and then 12 hours to New York! As I previously mentioned I can’t sleep on airplanes, so it was quite horrible. Leaving Japan at 4pm and arriving in New York at 4pm messed me quite up. Fortunately Delta took good care of me. The food was eatable, the crew tried to smile and they had an extensive entertainment system (available in Dutch!). Can’t remember which movies I’ve seen, but I guess they were enjoyable (ooh wait, I rememberBegin Again, good movie that one).

But then finally, I was in New York! Unfortunately my ESTA had just expired so I needed to wait in line at customs for another 2 hours… Passport got stamped, luggage got collected and off I went, to Downtown Manhattan where I was staying. Thanks to the amazing website Couchsurfing I’ve met some wonderful people on one of my previous trips to New York. They are awesome, super welcoming and they have the coolest dog in the world.

After a well-deserved night of sleep my third adventure in New York finally started. As always I had no plan, except watching as much musicals as possible and visiting the new 9/11 museum. I just love strolling around this city, taking pictures. You see a lot off cool stuff happening in this city. Close to the TKTS booth at South Street Seaport (my daily stop on this trip) I came across some guys dressed up as sailors in a photoshoot.

Brooklyn Bridge

Brooklyn

Downtown Manhattan

FDNY in action

After that I went to the finished One World Trade Center. The Observation Deck wasn’t open yet (it is now) but I managed to get a free ticket for the 9/11 museum. This was really a special experience. The museum is a must visit, it’s an impressive place build with respect for the people who died on this horrible day. There’s one room filled with pictures of those who lost their lives and you can read the story of every single one of them. Quite emotional to say at least.

Finding Neverland was truly amazing. With an incredible cast (Matthew Morrison (that guy from Glee), Kelsey Grammer, Laura M Kelly, Carolee Carmello,…) the show is a must-see. They just released their Cast Recording, I have it on repeat for 3 days straight now. Strangely they were totally ignored at the Tony Awards…

In Singapore I visited the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and in New York I managed to arrange a private property tour in one of the best hotels in the city, Langham Place New York. The hotel is beautiful, the rooms have amazing views and the hotel even has it’s own Hairsalon. You can find the article I wrote (in Dutch) here.

On my last full day I decided to walk from Downtown Manhattan through Chinatown and Midtown to Central Park. It was a beautiful walk via all the major sights. Had a wonderful lunch at Vanessa’s Dumplings too.

The 95 million dollar Penthouse

After a couple of wonderful days in New York it was time to say goodbye and to head home again. The flight back to Brussels was fortunately a little bit more comfortable as I flew Brussels Airlines Business Class for the fifth time. The crew was nice, the food delicious and the flight smooth.

But yeah, New York is and will be my favourite city. I like it so much that I will go back in November, before heading on a roadtrip via LA, Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. Another trip to look forward too!

In November 2014 I booked an error fare from Alitalia. I paid €311 for Rome-Singapore-New York with layovers in Abu Dhabi and Japan. Including two stand-by tickets on Brussels Airlines for Brussels-Rome and New York-Brussels the total cost for the flights was €411 and it looked like this:

My crazy itinerary

So that are 6 flights in just 10 days. The last part Brussels-Berlin I did by car.

So after a couple of wonderful days back in Belgium I left for this crazy trip. First stop was Rome, where I had a free night at the beautiful Hotel Indigo thanks to the Best Price Guarantee from IHG.

Rome

Rome

Breakfast at Hotel Indigo Rome

After 24h in sunny Rome I went back to the airport for my second flight, 5h to Abu Dhabi with Alitalia, where I had a layover of almost 6h. Abu Dhabi International Airport isn’t the most exciting airport, especially not in the morning. If you have a long layover here you should visit the Mosque but it wasn’t open yet when I arrived. Next was my flight to Singapore with Etihad. This flight was not too full, very comfortable, the food was good (they even give you real cutlery) and there were a lot of movies I wanted to see. Gone Girl was a good choice.

After this 8h flight I finally arrived at my destination, the lovely city/country of Singapore. It was 10pm local time when I arrived and since I can’t sleep on planes or airports I was exhausted. When waiting on my luggage I was approached by a Flemish couple who apparently booked the same error fare as I did. And to make it even more awesome they booked the same hotel as me! What a small world 🙂

Also joining in Singapore was my friend Jelle, who was doing a one-month-trip in Bali. When he arrived the four of us went the our hotel, the InterContinental Singapore. I used two free night vouchers that I received after finishing the Into The Nights promotion. The woman checking us in was super friendly, thanked me for being a Platinum Ambassador, gave me a souvenir, gave us a quadruple upgrade to a Shophouse Club Room and escorted us to the room. Wow! The room was great, with two big bed and a huge bathroom (very welcome after 24h of travelling!). We also had acces to the Club Intercontinental, where we could find an extensive breakfast, snacks, drinks and in the evening cocktail hour. But prepare, once you enter the Club they won’t let you leave until you try the famous Singapore Sling 🙂

IC Singapore Pool

The famous Raffles Hotel

Gift from the hotel

After a well deserved night of sleep (and a lot of laying at the pool) we went to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, where I arranged a private property tour. This hotel is really amazing. It’s the biggest hotel in Singapore and they’re almost always sold out. The tour took us to one of their most expensive suites (with it’s own entertainment room), the Skydeck and to the amazing pool area. You can find my article here (in Dutch).

The massive Marina Bay Sands Hotel

View from the hotel

View from the hotel

View from the hotel

The awesome pool area

After two wonderful nights at the IC we changed to the Holiday Inn Express Clarke Quay. This fairly new hotel was only 20K points, making it a good choice. The rooms aren’t very special but the best thing about this hotel is his rooftop deck with a very cool pool. You also have a nice view from the roof on the business district and the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. It even made me get up at 6am to make my very first time-lapse.

Pool

View from the roof

After some lovely chicken rice in one of the many Hawker Centers in the city I said goodbye to Jelle and went to my third hotel, Crowne Plaza Changi Airport. I had a very early flight out of Singapore so a airport hotel was a good idea. It was quite expensive at 40K IHG points but it was totally worth it. It holds the title as Best Airport Hotel in the world and I couldn’t agree more. It was beautiful, had a huge pool, big rooms and you can’t beat the view from your room…

View from my room

CP Changi Airport pool

Singapore was warm, clean, kind and friendly for us. The city is perfect for a short trip or a long layover. It has wonderful hotels with lovely people. Stay tuned for the next post about my favourite city in the world New York City (and 20h of flying…).

The last post on this blog is almost a whole year ago, so I guess it’s the perfect moment to start again. A lot of happened in the meantime. With some awesome friends I started Travelmagic.be, I played in the biggest musical in Belgian history, I moved to Berlin to start working for Vakantiepiraten.nl and I’ve visited Asia for the very first time (and New York for the third). Of course I will keep traveling so I thought it was a good idea to bring this blog back to life.

I’m making two changes to the blog: I will write in English because that’s still the most international language and I’m planning to make friends all over the world so it must be possible for them to read this. Also it will be mostly pictures with just a little bit of text. This gives me less chance to write mistakes and ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ they say.

Hopefully you’ll join me on this adventure and stay put for my first post about Singapore soon!